The subject matter disclosed herein relates to the assessing the quality of microscopy images.
For various physiological conditions, such as cancer, infectious diseases, physiological disorders, and so forth, detection and monitoring may be based, in part, on the analysis of a biological specimen from the patient. For example, a sample may be analyzed to detect the presence of abnormal numbers or types of cells and/or organisms that may be indicative of a disease or disorder. Various types of microscopy may be employed for such analysis. Further, various stains and staining protocols may be employed as part of this analysis to allow visualization of different structures, chemicals, or environments that might aid in detection or diagnosis of a disease or disorder.
To facilitate analysis of such pathology or histology samples, automated microscopy systems have been developed that automate various aspects of the image acquisition process. In particular, digital optical microscopes may be used in such automated systems and provide a digital image output for each acquisition. Certain such systems employ scanning microscopes where a sequence of displaced images are acquired and associated together (e.g., “tiled” or “stitched” together) to form a composite of the sample region of interest. For example, in the context of pathology and histology imaging operations, tissue sample slides may undergo imaging to acquire digital images of small adjacent or overlapping areas at high magnification and/or resolution. The adjacent or overlapping images may then be joined or associated to form a larger image that may be navigated on a digital display device. In this manner, a composite or mosaic image of the sample may be generated, displayed, and navigated by a reviewer.
In certain instances, a series of images (e.g., immunohistochemical images) may be acquired of the same sample using different biomarkers on the histologic sample of tissue for each round of imaging. For example, one such technique works on a principle of serial staining where directly labeled fluorescent antibodies are applied to the tissue, images are acquired in several fluorescence channels, and the fluorescent labels on the antibodies are then extinguished by a chemical bleaching process. The process of staining, imaging and bleaching can be repeated dozens of times, yielding images of perhaps fifty or a hundred biomarkers in the same tissue sample.
However, the capability of acquiring imagery for a large number of biomarkers results in a large number of images being acquired. For example, a study of twenty biomarkers for thirty fields of view acquired for samples from a hundred patients will yield sixty thousand images. As will be appreciated, some of these images will have technical faults or other defects and visual examination of the images for common faults may be an extremely laborious process.